Daily Archives: January 24, 2018

Today’s Takeaway

From citizens who say harvest is ‘grossly inadequate’ to tree sitting for 400+ days

January 24, 2018
Category: Today's Takeaway

After the massive wildfires that burned across North America in 2017, mitigation and salvage are top of mind concerns for the sector. Concerned citizens in Curry County Oregon not only support salvage logging, but are calling a proposed harvest “grossly inadequate” and lacking common sense. West Virginia’s agriculture commissioner isn’t as excited about logging, calling a bill that would open state parks to harvesting (to fund park improvements) “poorly thought out”. And, in Australia, one woman lived in a tree for  449 days to draw attention to deforestation — culminating in a successful world heritage listing. 

In Business news: EACOM has installed a continuous dry kiln in Timmins Ontario to increase output and improve efficiency; Price Edward Island’s premier joins those concerned about effluent from Northern Pulp; and will the TPP affect NAFTA talks? Lead negotiator for Canada, Steve Verheul says, “It has not come up yet — so far.”

— Sandy McKellar, Tree Frog Editor

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Business & Politics

Canada’s big new trade deal: How it could affect a far bigger deal – NAFTA

By Alexander Panetta and Mike Blanchfield
The Canadian Press in The Chronicle Herald
January 23, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, United States

Steve Verheul

MONTREAL — The signing of a sprawling new trade pact involving two North American countries has revealed a rift in philosophy with the continent’s superpower and raised the question of whether those differences might complicate the NAFTA negotiations. Canada and Mexico joined the new Trans-Pacific Partnership as the three North American countries gathered Tuesday in Montreal for a week-long round seen as potentially pivotal in gauging the prospects for a new NAFTA after a contentious few rounds. The chief negotiators for Canada and Mexico brushed aside the idea that the TPP deal would affect NAFTA talks. “It’s pretty much separate tracks,” Canada’s lead negotiator Steve Verheul told The Canadian Press, while walking between meetings at the negotiating round in Montreal. “It has not come up here yet — so far.” Note the qualifier — yet.

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‘It’s a sign that Canada does have options’: Seafood, mining and forestry to gain from TPP bloc

The National Post
January 23, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada

Seafood, mining, non-dairy agriculture, forestry and manufacturing industries are set to get a boost as Canada joins 10 other countries to form the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPATPP). Labelled by U.S. President Donald Trump as a ‘job killer’, the TPP was resurrected by the remaining Pacific Rim countries. …“It’s a sign that Canada does have options,” he said. “We’ll never not depend on the U.S. market, but they depend on us as well.” …The TPP could also significantly reduce import tariffs for wood products companies, according to Joel Neuheimer, a vice-president at the Forest Products Association of Canada. Still, forest products manufacturers remain heavily dependent on the U.S., which buys 70 per cent of its exports. …TPP members account for a combined 10 per cent of exports, according to FPAC.

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Continuous kiln installed at Timmins sawmill

By Lindsay Kelly
Northern Ontario Business
January 24, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

A newly installed continuous dry kiln at EACOM’s Timmins sawmill is expected to increase output and improve energy efficiency, giving the company a competitive edge as it battles against countervailing  and anti-dumping duties imposed by the U.S. Installed in September, the continuous dry kiln is the first of its kind in eastern Canada. It continually pushes lumber through the kiln, eliminating a bottleneck in the system, while keeping the energy output roughly the same. Production at the sawmill is expected to grow from 130 million board feet to 160 million board feet annually. “EACOM has been consistent in its strategy of growth and continuous improvement,” said EACOM’s president-CEO Kevin Edgson in a statement released at the time. “This investment demonstrates our commitment to the Timmins sawmill.”

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New Northern Pulp effluent plan worries Prince Edward Island premier

By Francis Campbell
The Chronicle Herald
January 23, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

Count the premier of Prince Edward Island among the voices of those concerned about a Northern Pulp plan to discharge treated pulp mill effluent into the Northumberland Strait. Premier Wade MacLauchlan wrote a letter Tuesday to federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and to Stephen McNeil, his fellow Liberal premier in Nova Scotia, to express his concerns. “I share the concerns… that an outflow pipe placed into the Northumberland Strait could have unintended consequences for commercial fishery and aquaculture industries,” MacLauchlan wrote in a letter attached to a news release. Kathy Cloutier, communications director of Paper Excellence Canada said in an email that the company expects the replacement project to be formally registered in late spring or early summer this year.

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Forestry Minister Shane Jones ‘extremely disappointed’ by proposed job losses

Newshub
January 24, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: International

Shane Jones

The Minister of Forestry is bitterly disappointed by a potential mass job loss at a wood processing plant. JNL is starting a proposal to nearly halve its workforce of 205 employees at its Gisborne mill. It’s a blow for the Government who had promised to build on the forestry sector, committing to planting one billion trees over the next ten years. Forestry Minister Shane Jones says the job losses will take a massive hit on the community. “Naturally I’m extremely disappointed when 100 people are losing their job. “It’s a commercial decision… but it does increase the pressure on very practical initiatives coming from the provincial growth fund.” Mr Jones is in charge of the new Forestry Service, which last week admitted it is scrambling to find enough land to meet its tree target.

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

Difference between plantation wood and forest wood?

By Gene Wengert
Woodworking Network
January 23, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

…Today we are seeing a lot more plantation grown wood in the marketplace, and you may not even know about it. It processes and looks like normal wood. But, from time to time, there are a few differences that we should be aware of and check for. We know the growth rate in a plantation is much faster than in a competitive forest. In many species, this means stronger wood. However, there is a “catch” to this statement. Studies that look at wood strength and other properties tend to ignore wood in the first 15 years of growth in the log because the wood in this region, often termed juvenile wood, is not as strong, can warp more easily in drying as well as warp more after drying when the MC changes (side bend and twist seem more common), and may have a different color and absorptivity during finishing.

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Forestry

‘Exciting’ new projects at Lake Babine Nation

BC Local News
January 24, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Lake Babine Nation (LBN) Chief Wilf Adam says LBN has two exciting new projects that are expected to be completed this spring. One of these projects is a natural resources building, which will house approximately 20 offices, two board rooms and an archive room. Located near The Pines, the building will be used by LBN’s natural resources staff, who work with government and industry on issues that affect the nation such as forestry. Chief Adam says forestry is one of the most important issues affecting LBN, and an essential part of the 25-year agreement currently being negotiated with the province. He says “a lot is at stake” with that agreement. …The $1.7 million natural resources building is partially being funded by the provincial government, which is contributing $950,000 toward the project. The remainder of the cost will covered by LBN.

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Logger cites political discrimination in human rights tribunal hearing

By Tamar Atik
Wood Business – Canadian Forest Industries
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

B.C. logger Bryan Fraser was offered a job as a senior policy officer in the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations in February 2015. One month later, his job offer was rescinded. Now Fraser’s case is being presented to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal as Fraser is claiming he was discriminated against based on his political beliefs regarding logging on the Haida Gwaii archipelago. Section 13 of the Human Rights Code states that one’s political views cannot be a determining factor in offering employment. The Ministry says that Fraser’s employment offer was revoked because it was discovered that he had been involved in a 2014 investigation by the Forest Practices Board regarding unethical logging on Haida Gwaii, and Fraser’s consequent “failure to disclose this relevant and pertinent information in the hiring process,” as stated in court documents to the tribunal.

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Cutting old growth for biomass furnace

Letter by Don Wilson
The New Glasgow News
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

An alarming email today tells me the biomass furnace at Port Hawkesbury Paper and run by NS Power has been operating at full blast 24/7 for months. This is in spite of what Premier Stephen McNeil told us just a few months ago. This was even while the mill itself was closed for two of the last four weeks due to lack of sales for glossy paper. The softwood biomass in Cape Breton is nearly exhausted and they are now gearing up to mass cut old growth hardwood at a very, very low stumpage cost to PHP – maples, beech and birch. They will chip that and truck those chips to Irving at Sussex and Saint John, N.B. The empty trailers will load softwood sawdust and shavings and haul that back to Port Hawkesbury at Nova Scotia taxpayer expense.

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Basalt will object to logging project, wants less truck traffic

By Scott Condon
The Aspen Times
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The Basalt Town Council wants the U.S. Forest Service to prune a logging project in the upper Fryingpan Valley to limit the number of trucks rolling through town….Councilman Gary Tennenbaum said making an objection gives the town government standing to continue negotiations with the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District over the project. “Traffic and safety are the big concerns we have on Frying Pan Road,” Tennenbaum said. The letter said the Forest Service correctly determined that the project could spur enough logging truck and chipping van traffic that it could pose a public safety hazard on Frying Pan Road and streets in Basalt. However, the federal agency’s response to the threat is inadequate, Basalt officials said.

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Forest Service: Court-halted forestry project needs post-wildfire analysis

By Tom Kuglin
Helena Independent Record
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Following last summer’s wildfires, the U.S. Forest Service says it must complete additional environmental analysis for a court-halted forestry project near Lincoln. The Stonewall Vegetation Project included logging and prescribed burning on nearly 5,000 acres within a 24,000-acre project area. Goals for the project centered mainly on fire mitigation and firefighter safety in an area heavily impacted by beetle kill. Last spring, U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen issued a temporary injunction for Stonewall in response to a lawsuit filed by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council. The alliance and council argued the project would negatively impact elk and grizzly bears while exemptions allowing logging in Canada lynx habitat were misapplied. …Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest Supervisor Bill Avey said Tuesday that the agency does not plan to withdraw the decision greenlighting the project, but must prepare additional analysis due to impacts from the fire.

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Group wants citizens to have voice in salvage logging plan

By Jane Stebbins
Curry Coastal Pilot
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The Curry Wildfire Prevention group wants Curry County citizens to let the U.S. Forest Service know black logs matter. The group met again Monday night to discuss how to best get citizens to submit comment to the forest service regarding a proposed salvage harvest of 13,000 acres of land burned in the 191,125-acre Chetco Bar Fire last summer. “This is the third major fire in 30 years,” said CWP member and former county commissioner George Rhodes. “Seventy-four percent of Curry County has been burned in these fires. We can’t afford to let this happen again. I want to insist the forest service have community input about managing resources and protecting the community.” … Curry Wildfire Prevention (CWP) said the acreage proposed is not nearly enough.Cam Lynn called the proposed harvest “grossly inadequate” for public safety and forest stewardship and lacks common sense.

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Oregon State University study: Buffer strips cool streams, but geology rules

KTVZ.COM
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Leaving a strip of trees along headwater streams during logging operations helps to keep the water cool, but researchers have now shown that the downstream impacts of such practices have more to do with geology than with the presence or width of buffer strips. Using studies in three Oregon watersheds — Alsea, Trask and Hinkle Creek — scientists analyzed the impact of buffer strips on downstream temperatures. The researchers used data recorded in experiments carried out in 27 locations over 14 years. The results of the analysis, one of the most robust of its kind in the nation, were reported in the journal Hydrological Processes. …Based on isolated research efforts, scientists have reached different conclusions about the impact of harvesting on stream temperatures and how far those impacts can be detected downstream.

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Millions of dead trees provide ideal conditions for massive wildfires, UC Berkeley study shows

By Adrianna Buenviaje
The Daily Californian
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Fire experts, including two UC Berkeley researchers, published a study Wednesday that found that the 100 million dead trees in the Sierra Nevada could potentially increase the risk of mass fires in the next decade. The accumulation of dead trees creates a massive reserve of fuel for wildfires. The study, which was published in the journal BioScience, discusses the use of forest management methods, including mechanical thinning and prescribed fires, as fire prevention techniques to reduce tree density in forests and disrupt the conditions that fuel mass fires. “I hope (the study) might give further information into the idea of just trying to address the overarching problem proactively,” said campus professor of fire science Scott Stephens, who co-authored the study.

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Elk population strong as species expands into more states

By Makayla Haack
NBC Montana
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The “shoulder season” is in its second full season in Montana after it began as a pilot project in 2015. The season is a focus on harvesting problematic elk on private land. …Though the animals have moved out of the mountains onto more private lands, the overall population is looking strong. …Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to elk and their habitat. To help elk thrive the foundation raises money to fund habitat stewardship projects like prescribed burns, noxious weed treatment and thinning forests. “Right now there’s a real problem with overgrown forests both in the west and in the eastern United States where elk live, and so one of our top priorities is thinning or getting active management, even logging in a responsible way,” said Henning.

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State Forest Officials Planning For Next Beetle Infestation

By Lee Strubinger
South Dakota Public Broadcasting
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The mountain pine beetle epidemic is over for now, but that doesn’t mean forest officials are resting on their laurels. The Black Hills Resilient Forest Strategy hopes to combine state, federal and private groups to help prevent another epidemic, as well as large scale wild fires. Ponderosa pine is a pesky species and managing those trees for forest health can be a challenge. …Greg Josten is the State Forester with the Department of Agriculture. For him that means partnering with the timber industry to thin out areas of the forest that may be susceptible to future beetle infestation. “If we don’t start managing the forest now, in preparation for the next epidemic, then when the epidemic starts there’s going to be too much to do all at one.

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Standoff in Olympia over, for now

By Amy Nile
The Chinook Observer
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Sen. Dean Takko


OLYMPIA — After throwing up their hands and leaving their respective legislative chambers without approving a construction budget last summer, state lawmakers on Thursday passed a $4.2 billion spending plan and a bill to address the rural water-rights dispute that had them deadlocked. …Blake and Walsh are working together on legislation to create a task force to help ensure protections for the marbled murrelet do not cause economic harm to areas that depend on logging and timber sales. Before Blake was appointed to the House in 2002, he worked as a logger, forester and a state environmental specialist. The marbled murrelet has been listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act since 1992. The state has been working since December to come up with a long-term plan to protect the small seabirds.

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West Virginia commissioner opposes parkland logging

Associated Press in WHSV
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

CHARLESTON, W.Va. West Virginia’s agriculture commissioner has recommended the Legislature and Gov. Jim Justice kill a bill that would open state parks to logging. Commissioner Kent Leonhardt says the initiative to harvest trees within the parks system to fund park improvements is “poorly thought out.” He predicts a negative effect on visitors and tourism, saying a better approach is instead using excess funds from more logging in state forests. The bill, introduced at Justice’s request, calls for logging limits not exceeding “the average of four trees per acre per tract” and not to exceed half the sellable timber on an acre.

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Meet the woman who lived in a tree for 449 days to help save a Tassie forest

By Mike Williams
ABC News, Australia
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Miranda Gibson

Miranda Gibson was an unlikely candidate to break Australia’s longest running tree sit record. She’d never seen a forest until her early twenties. Growing up in Ipswich, the shy Queenslander admits she was a “wussy kid” afraid of climbing her backyard treehouse. In 2011, she overcame those fears and endured 449 days in the Tasmanian treetops of the Tyenna Forest. Using a solar-powered computer, she connected with people around the world, and her activism brought attention to deforestation in Tasmania, culminating in a world heritage listing. …Ms Gibson’s commitment paid off. In February 2013, the Australian environment minister announced a world heritage listing nomination for an extra 170,000 hectares of Tasmanian forest. …It was a big win for Ms Gibson’s cause.

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Wood Pellet Association of Canada helping develop the Canadian Clean Fuel Standard

By Gordon Murray
Canadian Biomass Magazine
January 24, 2018
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECC) has invited the Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC), along with other potentially affected trade associations, to participate on a stakeholder committee and a technical committee to give input toward developing the federal Clean Fuel Standard. The Government of Canada’s intent is for the Clean Fuel Standard to be a performance-based regulation that will incent the use of a broad range of low carbon fuels, energy sources and technologies, such as electricity, hydrogen, and renewable fuels. It will establish lifecycle carbon intensity requirements separately for liquid, gaseous and solid fuels, and will go beyond transportation fuels to include those used in industry and buildings. The Clean Fuel Standard will complement the pan-Canadian approach to pricing carbon pollution.

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Champions of the Forests

By Julie Cohen
The University of California Santa Barbara Current
January 23, 2018
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US West

Researchers receive $2.5 million to study the effects of climate and climate change on trees along river channels. Riparian forests — the ribbons of trees that grow along river channels — play an important ecological role as refuges for endangered species in dry areas. But these natural havens are increasingly threatened by the changing frequency and intensity of drought, both of which are byproducts of climate change. Scientists at UC Santa Barbara are studying how riparian forests respond to climate change that manifests as hotter and drier conditions over time. With $2.5 million in combined funding from three grants, Michael Singer, a researcher with UCSB’s Earth Research Institute(ERI), and colleagues seek to understand the impact of nonstationary climate — trends in temperatures and precipitation — on riparian forests.

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Bioeconomy: A global trend?

Brinkwire
January 22, 2018
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

FINLAND — Several nations are investing in a bio-based economy to slash carbon footprints. At a recent summit, experts point out how more work is needed to realize bioeconomy’s potential as a climate solution. Against a backdrop of refineries and a tall chimney, hills of woodchips welcome visitors to the Äänekoski Metsä bioproduct mill in central Finland, the largest mill of its kind in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact, it’s more than a mill — it’s a whole ecosystem of companies that turn a profit from birch, pine and spruce logs trucked in daily from sustainably managed forests around the country. The Metsä Group’s 35-year-old pulp mill reopened in August 2017.

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